In introducing the new leader of the city's beleaguered police department just
three days after his inauguration, Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline wasted
little time in delivering on his campaign pledge of instituting meaningful
change. And Cicilline seems to have found a kindred spirit in Dean Esserman,
the new colonel in town, who paid homage to cops even while making clear his
intention to forge improved police-community relations and modernize the
Providence department.
Esserman appears to be what Rhode Island's capital city has needed for a long
time: a respected outsider with the experience, motivation, and independence to
inspire the ranks, implement a real community policing program, and otherwise
move the department forward. US Attorney Meg Curran, for one, considers the new
chief's arrival no less than "one of the most exciting things that has happened
to the city in a long time, second only to our new mayor. The Providence Police
Department is absolutely critical to all of us in law enforcement in this
state," and since the department hasn't been working properly in recent years,
Curran says, the consequences have exerted a statewide impact.
As the federal prosecutor notes, the inchoate process of reform is
inextricably linked with the change of administrations at Providence City Hall.
For years, former mayor Vincent A. "Buddy" Cianci Jr. voiced essentially
unstinting support for the police department and pooh-poohed the need for a
serious overhaul, even as evidence of serious problems -- including persistent
complaints of excessive force and discriminatory practices, and alleged
wrongdoing related to promotions and promotional exams -- mounted.
Although it may have seemed counter-intuitive to some observers, the best
advocate for the cops vexed by such woes turns out to be Cicilline, a liberal,
openly gay, former criminal-defense lawyer. At the same time, it's not really
surprising. Cicilline may have been a strong backer of the effort to establish
civilian review -- a concept that police tend to reflexively oppose -- but he
also spoke out long before becoming a mayoral candidate about the harm posed to
good cops and the city as a whole when flagrant institutional problems go
ignored. Three years ago, for example, Cicilline described how a raft of
internal troubles under former chief Urbano Prignano Jr. undermined "public
confidence in other functions of the police department, whether it's fair or
not" (see "Whose force is it, anyway," News, September 16, 1999).
The department still faces a policies-and-practices investigation by the US
Justice Department, and the way in which an internal investigation into alleged
cheating on promotional exams failed to produce tangible results last fall
didn't exactly raise morale.
But Cicilline, who has appropriated a bit of the former mayor's upbeat
delivery even while blaming Cianci for overly politicizing the police
department, is bullish about the prospects for reform. Predicting that Esserman
will transform the entrenched institutional culture, the mayor brushes aside
the potential obstacles posed by recalcitrant officers, bureaucratic inertia,
and such perpetual bugaboos as the law enforcement officer's bill of rights.
"Good things are about to happen," says Cicilline, who has vowed not to
interfere after equipping Esserman with a four-year contract at a salary
surpassing his own. "Police officers who work hard are thirsting for good
leadership. I hear as much excitement from the rank-and-file as I do from the
residents of our neighborhoods."
Providence police sergeant Cornel Young Jr.
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Indeed, Esserman's organizational smarts were on display during his
introductory news conference at police headquarters on January 9. Looking
somewhat severe before things got rolling, he displayed tact and courtesy by
thanking his two predecessors, outgoing colonel Guido Laorenza and Major
Richard T. Sullivan, for their service. Esserman, 45, cited the importance of
holding police accountable and treating them with respect, describing plans to
seek improvement "one officer at a time. If you talk, I will listen." He
leavened his unqualified support for reform and a strong commitment to
community policing, saying, "I look around and see the uniforms around me -- I
don't see problems. I see heroes." Showing his sense of humor after a glowing
introduction by Cicilline, Esserman cracked, "I can't believe my wife isn't
here to hear this."
The warm reception afforded the new chief by leaders of the Fraternal Order of
Police and other cops validates the view that many, perhaps even most, of the
almost 500 officers in the department are eager to put their problems in the
past. Still, as former attorney general Sheldon Whitehouse put it in a separate
interview, "I don't want to underestimate the trouble that the Providence
Police Department is in. It is not going to be an easy task to straighten it
out."
Although he's never served as a street cop, Esserman has an impressive
background. He graduated from the police academy in New Haven, Connecticut,
worked as a state and federal prosecutor in New York, and served, for most of
the last 12 years, as assistant chief in New Haven, and chief of the
Metropolitan Transit Authority Metro-North Police Department, and then the
Stamford, Connecticut, Police Department. Most recently, he was an executive
with Thacher Associates, a New York-based corporate investigations firm.
It will take time to change public perceptions, particularly in the poorer
Providence neighborhoods where police-community relations are most in need of
improvement, but many observers are optimistic about the outlook. As put by
Steve Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island chapter of the American
Civil Liberties Union, "Things can only go up. I think that's a fair statement
and I have no reason to doubt that they will. The mayor has certainly
demonstrated in his other roles a strong concern about this issue. I would be
very surprised if we didn't see some significant changes in police-community
relations."
Adds Mary Kay Harris, a community organizer with the activist group Direct
Action for Rights & Equality, "We have some very high expectations and are
definitely welcoming any type of change that would bring not only
accountability, but the building of a relationship. It's very important that
the community be able to trust the police and vice versa. That hasn't happened
yet. I think the vision that the new chief is bringing in is a positive and
something worth embracing. That's a part of his vision here -- to make sure
we're working hand in hand."
At the same time, it bears noting -- especially on the eve of Tuesday, January
28, the third anniversary of the death of Providence police sergeant Cornel
Young Jr. -- that although making institutional change in a police department
is complex and very difficult, it's a snap compared to taking on the broader
issues of racial inequality in American society. Just consider the contrast
between the abject poverty and violence encompassing large swaths of South
Providence and other poor parts of American cities and the widespread
misunderstanding and hostility greeting efforts -- like affirmative action --
that might play some small role in changing the situation.
AS ESSERMAN and his lieutenant, Andy Rosenzweig, a celebrated former New York
City detective, set about bringing change to the police department, a pending
civil suit is poised to offer an unpleasant reminder of a difficult time in the
recent past. The $20 million wrongful-death and civil rights suit blames the
City of Providence (as well as particular police administrators and officers)
for the death of Young, 29, a black officer who was shot and killed by two
white colleagues when they didn't recognize him as he interceded, off-duty, in
civilian clothes, and wielding a gun, in a late-night altercation at the Fidas
Diner. (In 2000, a state grand jury cleared the two officers, Carlos Saraiva
and Michael Solitro III, of criminal responsibility in connection with the
shooting.)
Although the death of Young, the son of the highest-ranking minority officer
in the Providence police, quickly came to be seen as a tragedy that transcended
racial boundaries, it also raised the uncomfortable question of what role race
played in the shooting and why his fellow officers -- one who had been in the
same academy class -- didn't recognize him. It's possible, as police have
maintained, that Young's death was a terrible accident. And it's hardly
inconceivable, as put by the flamboyant Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., after he was
hired by Leisa Young, the slain officer's mother, to represent her in the civil
suit, "if [Cornel Young Jr.] were white, he'd be alive."
Beyond this question, Young's death became a galvanizing event because of the
collective sense that concerns about racial inequities and police-community
relations had long gone ignored. Responding to a wave of grassroots activism,
then-governor Lincoln Almond created a Select Commission on Race and
Police-Community Relations that brought together a cross-section of
representatives from law enforcement, the clergy, civil rights activism and
produced some far-reaching recommendations.
The suggested initiatives include creating an accreditation process for law
enforcement agencies; establishing uniform statewide qualification standards
for law enforcement officers; requiring officers to have continued skills
training throughout their careers. There are specific recommendations meant to
avoid accidental shootings, such as the adoption of a signal that off-duty or
out of uniform officers can use to communicate their profession to other
officers. Two bills due to be introduced this session in the General Assembly
encompass many of the commission's recommendations.
Lloyd Monroe, executive director of the commission, says the recommendations
"will produce change that we believe will be mutually beneficial, not only to
the law enforcement agencies themselves but to the communities. That in itself
is extraordinary -- to bring such a diverse group of stakeholders to the table
and get them to agree on taking steps that will change the structure of law
enforcement standards and training."
Although the state's fiscal uncertainty could make it more difficult to move
forward quickly, "our public safety needs are our public safety needs and they
must be addressed even in times of fiscal crisis," Monroe says. "The more we
delay, the more it's going to cost us," in terms of the millions of dollars in
liability that communities face for claims related to law enforcement and
public safety.
A case in point is the shooting death of Cornel Young Jr. After creeping
forward for several years, the civil suit filed on behalf of Leisa Young (Major
Cornel Young Sr., the slain officer's father, is not involved in the claim),
could go to trial in a few months.
Lawyer Nick Brustin of the New York-based law firm of Cochran Neufeld &
Scheck says he anticipates a trial taking place in US District Court in
Providence shortly after the deadline for discovery in the case in April. "We
have uncovered a tremendous amount of evidence in terms of what happened on the
night of the shooting, but more importantly in terms of what happened prior to
that in terms of training and discipline," Brustin says, declining to
elaborate. "We're going to go to trial and prove it." (Leisa Young didn't
respond to a request for comment made through Brustin; Cornel Young Sr.
declined a request for comment.)
In responding to Cochran's involvement in the civil suit in April 2000, Cianci
vowed to vigorously fight it, and he described the flashy Los Angeles lawyer as
a harbinger of division as Providence was starting to heal from the pain of
Cornel Young Jr.'s death. It's questionable, though, whether Leisa Young -- who
at the time expressed a desire to know what happened to her son (the grand jury
process that cleared the other officers is closed) -- would have felt the need
to bring in the heavy artillery if she had had confidence in the process and
Cianci's desire to overhaul a seriously troubled police department.
It remains to be seen if Cicilline, who was noncommittal on the question in a
recent interview, will direct the city to take a different response to the
civil suit than Cianci. But it's ironic, to say the least, that the man who has
finally brought the promise of reform to the cops faces the unenviable task of
directing the response to an aggrieved mother who had cited as one her goals
improving the Providence Police Department.
IT'S STILL SOMEWHAT surreal to walk into the corner office of Providence City
Hall -- so long associated with Cianci -- and find a new mayor who represents
such a sharp contrast with the status quo of the suddenly bygone era.
Even some members of the local civil rights community have had a few doubts
about the reality of this change. Alarm bells went off last month when a filing
related to the city's lack of compliance with a statewide racial profiling
study mirrored earlier arguments by the previous administration, which had gone
to court over Providence's involvement in the survey. But Cicilline allayed
such concerns and passed another important symbolic test on Friday, January 16,
when he directed the police leadership to cooperate with the study.
The city's adoption last year of civilian review, after a long and halting
struggle, pales in comparison to the significance of new leadership within City
Hall and the police department. Civilian oversight can be a part of increasing
public confidence in the police, but institutional reform can't be imposed on a
bureaucracy like a large urban police department from the outside. It has to
come from within. The new leadership in Providence, along with Attorney General
Patrick Lynch and other state officials, seem to recognize the importance of
using collaborative approaches to tackle urban violence and other serious
problems.
The usefulness of such tactics can be seen in Boston -- a city not without its
own serious history of racial problems -- where cooperative efforts between law
enforcement and inner-city clergy significantly reduced the annual number of
homicides for much of the '90s. By contrast, Teny Gross, executive director of
the Institute for Nonviolence in South Providence, notes how a far slighter
drop in the number of homicides in Providence -- which, as elsewhere, mostly
occur in the city's poorest neighborhoods -- is usually greeted with a lack of
disapproval, as if a certain amount of premature and violent death isn't just
expected, but tolerable.
Certainly, it's heartening that a nascent amount of change has come to
Providence. The process, however, represents a somewhat natural and predictable
political cycle in which scandal often gives way to reform. When it comes to
the unfinished business of race in America, even though the issue is perpetual
and always with us, most people choose not to see it except during times of the
most palpable crisis.
Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis[a]phx.com.
Issue Date: January 24 - 30, 2003
